


I Used to Carry You Home

by AlibiRooms



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Acceptance, Angst, Estrangement, F/F, Lots of Crying, Resolution, Self-Hatred, Sexual Content, during and post the show, happy ending? maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26115187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlibiRooms/pseuds/AlibiRooms
Summary: Sometimes all you can do is hurt someone.
Relationships: Catra/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	I Used to Carry You Home

It was Catra that was bored that day. It was her suggestion that made Adora want to leave the Fright Zone on the skiff. After years of living in the same hallways and training rooms, wondering what lied on the outside, it had to happen _that_ day. A day like any other. How was Catra supposed to wake up and prepare for that sort of thing?

Adora took one look at the outside world and decided she wanted more than just Catra. More than everything they had ever planned together.

They had so many plans.

Scorpia's there, in the aftermath. Catra goes to her. Why wouldn’t she? Scorpia is everything Adora was and more. She’s dedicated, and strong, and _wants_ to be by Catra’s side.

For a while, it's easy to ignore how things are adding up. All the ways Scorpia _isn't_ Adora, and never really was. Catra stops ignoring it halfway through the first time they have sex. Right after Princess Prom.

It occurs to her, as she looks into soft brown eyes, that what to her is means to an end might be more to Scorpia. Much more.

The sex is good. It's great, even. Scorpia is surprisingly skilled with her claws, and the high of an orgasm erases every thought in Catra's head for a few blessed seconds.

It's whatever.

It's not _her_.

As she comes down, Scorpia is looking at her. Catra knows it was a terrible mistake. If she leads Scorpia on, it could cost her the only person who still wants her.

The thought is so viscerally horrifying. Losing Scorpia. Catra won’t survive it. For all that she isn’t enough, she’s all Catra has. Might ever have.

Scorpia _can’t_ go. Catra won't let her. She's a force captain now. She has the power to make anyone do anything she wants. 

No. Scorpia won’t leave. The touches and stolen kisses and burning guilt would have to be enough for the both of them. Catra can’t give her any more than that (don’t think about why, don’t think about the face that fills her mind and warps her eye sockets when she’s pinned to the wall by warm lips and gentle claws).

Scorpia isn’t Adora. That means so many things, but it means she’ll stay.

She’ll stay.

Catra leans up, carding her fingers through Scorpia's sweet-smelling hair, and asks for more. She did technically die tonight, after all. She deserves some release.

Scorpia gives it to her.

***************

Scorpia’s been singing. Catra struggles through a third draft of a weapons report, correcting everyone else’s mistakes and desperately trying to avoid her own. Bad things happen when she makes mistakes. She has to be perfect.

But the _humming_.

“What is that?” She snaps, standing from her chair and clenching her fists. Scorpia glances over from where she’s been shining some facet of Emily’s bulk. She’s smiling. She’s always smiling.

“It’s a lullaby,” she said. “My parents used to sing it to me.”

Catra doesn’t think that’s true. Scorpia was just a baby when…it all happened. It's easy to forget Scorpia has a stake in all this. She actually has a photograph. Evidence of what she lost.

No one else in the Fright Zone has that much. They're all somebodies someone else has lost. Catra didn't remember a single thing about being so young, except that Adora - 

Catra lets her claws sink into her palms, noticing Scorpia noticing her pain.

“Well, knock it off.”

Scorpia laughs and comes closer. “You don’t like my singing?”

Catra rolls her eyes, trying and failing to escape the claws that encircle her waist, swinging her in a circle like she weighs nothing. Scorpia sways them a little, singing soft words about moonlight and love. She has a nice voice.

“Stop.”

Catra leaves quickly, running from the gaze she can feel burning into her back like a brand.

*******************

Things are different after the Crimson Waste. Tenser. Catra rejected Scorpia, in a way, but they carry on like usual. It’s difficult to stay in the moment. Catra feels on the verge of collapse, every second threatening dissociation and fatigue.

Despite their size difference, it’s Scorpia who walks away with scratches and bruises. It's hard to tell if she minds it or not. Catra herself doesn't know if they're supposed to be love marks, or something else. She doesn't know why she's so rough all of a sudden. It's not like it's Scorpia she's mad at.

One night she moans Adora’s name.

Scorpia goes still above her, everything grinding to a halt as she fixes Catra with a betrayed, but unsurprised, frown. Catra makes an attempt to ignore it, undulating her hips and moaning like nothing had happened.

"You're thinking about her," Scorpia says. Catra spares half a thought towards scorn - of course she was thinking about _her_. Was Scorpia stupid? Did she not understand what this was?

Then, suddenly, she's afraid. Scorpia _doesn't_ understand, she remembers. And Scorpia isn't smiling.

“Who?” Catra asks weakly, like it would fool either of them.

When Scorpia sits up, Catra's bed creaks. Her legs, still wrapped around Scorpia's waist, are pinned in place. She can't move.

Scorpia knows she hates that. Scorpia _knows_ Catra hates talking while they're naked. And she knows Catra hates it when she looks at her like _that_. Soft and open and pained.

“Tell me you love me," she says flatly.

“I love you,” Catra answers, without hesitation. She’s shocked by the ease with which it leaves her lips. For a half-second, she wonders if it’s true.

Scorpia doesn't react at all. Her dark eyebrows furrow a bit, then she leans back town, kissing Catra mournfully.

"I love you, Catra," she says after.

“I just said I – “

“Don’t," Scorpia whispers, their faces inches apart. “Don't lie to me any more tonight, please.”

She stands up.

Catra breaks into a cold sweat. "Where are you going?"

Her voice is much too sharp and angry and self-righteous and everything else wrong with her. She doesn’t know how to fix it.

Scorpia doesn’t look at her, pulling on her clothes.

“Scorpia,” she hisses. “Get back in bed.”

Scorpia walks toward the door. When Catra speaks, she hardly recognizes her own voice.

“Stay,” she says, forcing back a sob. How will she sleep if Scorpia isn’t there to sing to her? "I'm second in command! Did you _forget that?"_

The door opens, throwing Scorpia’s shadow into long relief.

“Scorpia. I am _begging_ you. Stay.”

Just for the night, she means. They both know it’s more than that. It's more, both too much and too little.

Not enough.

Not enough.

Scorpia hesitates for a tremulous second. An angry welt on her shoulder thrums still beneath Catra's claws. They're all down her back, Catra knows. She suddenly wants to apologize, to run for a first aid kit and patch up what she's damaged.

She'll do that. She'll apologize. Then maybe - 

_Bang._

Catra stays just like that, her body straining toward the closed door, for what feels like forever.

**************

It’s all over, she thinks, dazed in the light of the world Adora has created anew. Everyone is a little dazed. It’s…over. The sudden end, the halt to their momentum. It leaves Catra reeling, because she knows this all happened in spite of her. Against her best efforts, there is peace.

Catra is standing still for the first time in years, and she's terrified of what's going to catch up to her.

To her right, Adora is still being mobbed by civilians from the nearby town, all chittering and squawking and barely coming up to her shoulders, they're so tiny. Or maybe she's so big. Towering and splendid and a beacon to all things good.

Catra doesn't belong at her side. That much is obvious in the way most of the rebellion people still look at her when Adora isn't around. They hate her.

She can hardly fault any of them that.

Adora catches her eye, smiling and rolling her eyes in a way that Catra knows means _it'll be over soon_.

She's wrong. But that's okay. Catra can wait.

She'll wait forever. Adora is _hers_ , now, and not as a captive, or prisoner of war. But an equal. A companion, a... a lover, if they make it that far.

There’s space in her heart she hadn’t been aware of before. She was sure it could only ever be crushing shame and guilt. Now, there’s…love. All over the damn place. It fills her soul like a watercolor, seeping color into her grayest spots.

And it's not all bad, with the rebellion (She needs to stop thinking of them like that. Adora keeps telling her to call them 'friends'. Seems like a stretch.) Sparkles talks to Catra a lot. Bow tries to make her laugh. Entrapta is Entrapta. And Perfuma...

To the left, up on the hill, Perfuma is making flowers grow around Scorpia’s prone form, curling around her ankles and threading into her hair. Catra can see that they’re both laughing. Smiling. She even catches the barest hint of song drifting over.

She knows what will happen. Scorpia and Perfuma. It makes perfect sense.

What she doesn't understand is why it bothers her. Why one of the more stubborn pieces of gray on her canvas won't just absorb some pink or something. Maybe Perfuma can make flowers grow on the inside, too.

In the chaos of a world in rebirth, Catra retreats. There's a quiet spot of clifftop overlooking the biggest field she's ever seen, half-hidden behind a tree. The tree is humongous, and only hours old, stretching into a sky of a million colors. And the stars...

Catra had never felt like more of a child than when she saw those stars. Insignificant. Helpless.

Scorpia finds her some time later. She sits without a word, resting one claw in the grass between them. By the time Catra wraps her hand around it, the tears have really set in.

“Scorpia,” she whispers.

“I already said; you’re forgiven.”

“I hurt you," Catra said. Scorpia can't just let her off that easy. There has to be retribution. "There's nothing I can do to make up for - "

"I knew it was a lost cause, wildcat." Scorpia is _smiling_. Catra didn't remember her smile looking quite so...free. "I let you do what you wanted, because I wanted it, too, in a way. The off-duty stuff, at least."

Catra wants to laugh at her blush, but this isn't a joke to her. This is the worst thing she ever did. "I knew how you felt, Scorpia," she grits out. "I used it. I used _you_ because I was afraid - "

"I know," Scorpia interrupts, shrugging like it's nothing. "I knew all of that, and I let you do it. I thought...I thought I could help you, in some way. You were in pain."

"Don't _do_ that. Don't forgive me. Nobody else has."

"They will." Scorpia looks down where they're touching, closing one claw over Catra's fingers. There are tiny roses in her hair. "And, you know...I really meant when I said I loved you."

She glances up, then away, her eyes filling with tears. Catra can't look at them without her own spilling over a thousand fold, the excess of their pain meeting in drops upon the grass.

Catra remembers what she said, that last night they were together. It was callous and _stupid_ to turn this away even when she believed she had nothing else.

It's not regret. Not quite. Because it all led her to Adora, didn't it? How could it be wrong?

She loves Adora, completely and totally. It doesn't make sense that her heart could still hurt this badly over...somebody else.

The horizon turns orange as the first day of this world draws to a tender close. Catra feels something slipping away, out of reach. It's important, she knows that much, she's just too afraid to admit it to herself.

A claw turns her chin, soft lips meeting her forehead once. "I'll always love you," Scorpia murmurs, her voice breaking just enough.

Catra gasps, and then sobs. She sobs from her stomach up, and then her toes. She sobs all of herself out.

She's too scared to admit that her pain and rage had distracted her from something creeping into her heart. Something she only ever associated with Adora. Past all her vicious defenses and childhood loyalty, there was Scorpia.

“I’ll always love you, too," she admits, here on this cliff where the old world still lingers. 

It hurts to say. What's worse, every syllable rings with truth.

Scorpia smiles, sad, like she already knew.

Catra leans in and presses a messy, tear-stricken kiss to her jaw. And then her lips. One final, reckless kiss. For all the time lost, all the pain inflicted without need.

There's nothing heated about it. It's just goodbye.

The air shifts as they pull away. The entire world exhales, breathing down leaves and petals. What's done is finally done, and Catra can breathe. Her lungs still hitch and her head throbs, but she's alive.

They aren't going to hurt each other again.

A rose, at some point, landed on Catra's knee. She takes it and fits it back into Scorpia's white shock of hair.

Scorpia still looks unflinchingly calm. Her eyes are dry (ish) and her cheeks are only a little pink. Catra will miss that.

"Friends?" Scorpia asks, almost teasing.

Catra can only nod, hugging her as tightly as possible. "Friends. Forever, okay?"

"I think I can do that."

People will come looking for them, soon. At least Adora will. Catra scrubs at her eyes, trying to rid herself of the evidence. Adora gets upset when she cries.

"You know," Scorpia says, wiping her thumbs across Catra's cheeks and giggling. "You should probably tell her about us."

 _Her._ Adora. "Why?" Catra asks, though she already planned too. At some point in the future.

Scorpia blushes again. “Well, I kinda had to explain these scratches on my back to Perfuma…”

Catra groans, covering the guilt with a lot more skill than she could an hour ago. 

“Yeah.” Scorpia pulls her to her feet, dusting her hands over Catra's shoulders. More roses had gathered there. “Better hurry. I don’t think she can keep a secret.”

Catra nods, squaring her shoulders.

They enter the future together, hand in claw.

The sky grows darker, but the sun will come up. Tomorrow, the world will be a painting.

**Author's Note:**

> formerly a twitter thread
> 
> https://twitter.com/alibirooms/status/1296636014543482881?s=21


End file.
